Grand Funk is Grand Funk Railroad’s second studio album and was released in December 1969 by Capitol Records. It was produced by Terry Knight and engineered by Ken Hamann. This release (aka The Red Album) was certified by RIAA with a gold record award, the first for the group. It includes a cover of The Animals’ “Inside Looking Out” which is still a cornerstone of the band’s live concerts today. Other key tracks include “Got This Thing on the Move”, “In Need”, and “Paranoid”. The inside spread photograph of the trio, for the original album release, was used for the now infamous, $100,000, block-long and several stories high, New York City’s Times Square billboard ad for the album Closer to Home (1970). It stayed up longer than the times contracted due to a strike by the painters union. Mel Schacher’s “fuzz” bass tone gained as much prominence as Mark Farner’s guitar and Don Brewer’s drums and remained a co-lead instrument until Phoenix when it was toned down slightly.

Grand Funk was originally released by Capitol Records in LP, Cassette, 8-track tape, and reel-to-reel configurations. The original reel-to-reel version (manufactured for Capitol/EMI by Ampex) contains edited versions of “Got This Thing on the Move”, “Please Don’t Worry”, “Mr. Limousine Driver” and “Inside Looking Out” not available elsewhere. The edits on these songs reduce the album’s overall running time by approximately five minutes.

In 2002 Grand Funk was remastered on compact disc with bonus tracks and also released in a limited edition box set Trunk of Funk that contained the band’s first four albums. The “trunk” has slots for twelve CDs to house the future release of the remaining eight albums that were released by Capitol records. Also included is a pair of Shinin’ On 3-D glasses, guitar pick and a sticker reproducing a concert ticket.

Grand Funk Railroad, sometimes shortened as Grand Funk, is an American rock band popular during the 1970s, when they toured extensively and played to packed arenas worldwide. David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine once said, "You cannot talk about more...